CHAPTER VI.

BANK-STOCK AT THE BAR.

The Court of Ten Millions was once more in session. The judge was once more in his seat; his form enveloped in the coat with many capes, his features shadowed by the hat with ample brim. But the beautiful Esther was no longer on his left, nor the giant negro on his right. The great statesman, with the somber brow and masquerade attire of Roderick Borgia, no longer sat in the seat of the criminal. The scene was altogether changed, although the candle on the table still shed its beams around that room, whose black hangings were fringed with gold, and whose gloomy ceiling represented a stormy sky, with the sun struggling among its clouds.

In the seat of the criminal sat Israel Yorke, the financier; his diminutive form, clad in the scarlet Turkish jacket and blue trowsers, contrasting somewhat oddly with his business-like face, and with the general appearance of the scene. Israel was perplexed, for he shifted uneasily in the chair and clasped its arms with his hands, while his ferret-like eyes, now peering above, now below, but never through the glasses of his spectacles, roved incessantly from side to side. There sat the silent judge, under the gloomy canopy, his head bowed on his breast. There was the black table, on which stood the solitary candle, and over which were scattered, an inkstand, pen and paper, a book, and sundry other volumes, looking very much like ledger and day-book. On one side of the table, ranged against the wall, were six sturdy fellows, attired in coarse garments, with crape over their faces; and each man held a club in his brawny hand. And on the opposite side, also ranged against the wall like statues, were six more sturdy fellows, each one grasping a club with his strong right arm. They were dumb as stone; only their hard breathing could be heard;--evidently men of toil, who, on occasion, in a good cause, can strike a blow that will be felt.

Israel did not like this scene. A few moments since, kneeling beside a beautiful girl, whose young loveliness was helpless and in his power;--and now, a prisoner in this nightmare sort of place, with the judge before him, and six sturdy fellows on either hand, waiting to do the judge's bidding! The contrast was too violent. Israel thought so; and--Israel felt anything but comfortable.

"Do they mean to murder me in this dismal den?" he ejaculated to himself. "Really, this way of doing business is exceedingly unbusiness-like. What would they say in Wall street to a scene like this?"

Here the voice of the judge was heard through the dead stillness:

"Israel Yorke, you are about to be put on trial for your crimes."

"My crimes?" ejaculated the little man, bounding from his seat. "Crimes!--What crimes have I committed?"

There, outspoke the sense of injured innocence! To be sure--what crimes had he committed? Had he ever stabbed a man, or put another man's name to paper, or stolen a loaf of bread? No,--indignantly--No! Israel Yorke was above all that. But how many robbers had he made, in the course of his career, by his banking speculations? how many forgers? how many murderers? how many honest men had he flung into the felon's cell? how many pure women had he transformed into walkers of the public streets? Ah! these are questions which Israel Yorke had rather not answer.

"Yes, your crimes, committed through a long course of years; not with the bravery and boldness of the highway robber, but with the cowardice and low cunning of the sneak and swindler, who robs within the letter of the law. Crimes committed, not upon the wealthy and the strong, but upon the weak, the poor, the helpless--the widow, by her fireless hearth--the orphan, by his father's grave. Oh, sir--we have just tried a bold, bad man; a colossal criminal, whose very errors wear something of the gloomy grandeur of the thunder-cloud. To put you on trial, after him, is like leaving the presence of Satan, his forehead yet bearing some traces of former splendor, to find ones-self confronted by Mammon, that most abased of all the damned. Yes, sir,--an apology is due to human nature, by this court, for stooping so low as to put _you_ on your trial. And yet, even you derive some sort of consequence from the vast field of your crimes,--the wide-spread and infernal results of your life-long labors."

Israel crouched in his chair, as though he expected the ceiling to fall on him. "What d'ye mean by crimes?" he cried, grasping the arms of the chair with both hands;--"and what right have you to try me?"

The judge briefly but pointedly, and in a clear voice, which penetrated every nook of the chamber, explained the peculiar features of the court. Its power, backed by ten millions of silver dollars; its jurisdiction, over crimes committed by those who seek the fruits of labor, without its work, or who use the accident of wealth and social position to oppress or degrade man--their brother; its stern application to criminals, who, clad in wealth, had trampled all justice under foot of their own terse motto, "MIGHT MAKES RIGHT."

The explanation of the judge was brief, but impressive. Israel began to feel conviction steal into his soul. "Might makes right!" Oh, how like the last nail in the coffin, are those simple words, to a wealthy scoundrel, who suddenly finds himself helpless in the grasp of a mightier power!

"Of--what--am--I--accused!" faltered Israel; thus recognising the jurisdiction of the court.

The judge answered him:

"Of every crime that can be committed by the man, who makes it his sole object in life to coin money out of the life and blood of the helpless and the poor;--and who pursues this object steadily, by day and night, for twenty years, with the untiring scent of the bloodhound on the track of blood. Survey your life for the last twenty years. You have appeared in various characters: as the trustee, as the executor, as the speculator, the landlord, and the financier."

He paused. Israel found himself listening with intense interest.

"As the trustee, to whom dying men, with their last breath, intrusted the heritage of the orphan, you have in every case, plundered the orphan out of bread, out of education, and cast him ignorant and helpless upon the world. How many orphans, given into your charge, with their heritage, now rot in the grave, or in the felon's dungeon? Your history is written in their blood. Do you,--" the voice of the judge sank low,--"do you remember one orphan, whom, when a little child, her father gave to your care, and whom, when grown to young womanhood, you robbed of her heritage? Do you remember the day on which she died, the tenant of a brothel?"

Once more the judge was silent, but Israel had no word of reply. As for the twelve listeners, they manifested their attention by an ominous murmur.

"As the landlord, it has not been your object to provide the poor with comfortable homes, in exchange for their hard-earned rent-money, but to pack as many human beings as you might, within the smallest compass of brick and mortar,--to herd creatures made in the image of the living God, in narrow rooms, dark courts, and pestilential alleys, as never beasts were herded,--and thus you have sowed death, you have bred the fever, the small-pox, the cholera,--but _you have made money_."

Seated in the shadow of the velvet canopy, from which his voice resounded, the judge again was silent. Israel, dropping his eyes, imitated the silence of the judge. The murmur of the twelve listeners was now accompanied by the sound of their clubs grating against the floor.

"It is as a banker, however, that your appetite for money, made out of human blood, takes its intensest form of baseness. You started with a Savings Fund, chartered by a well-paid legislature, who transformed you into a president and board of directors, and divesting you of all responsibility, as a man, authorized you to coin money out of the blind confidence of the poor. Hard-working men, servant-girls, needle-women, and others of the poor, who gain their pittance by labor that never knows rest, until it sleeps in the grave, deposited that pittance in your hands. A pittance, mark you, not so remarkable for its amount, as for the fact, that it might, in some future hour, become bread to the starving, warmth to the freezing, home to the homeless. And how did you deal with the sacred trust? The earnings of the poor filled the coffers of your Savings Fund, until they counted over a hundred thousand dollars, and then, on the eve of a dreary winter, the Savings Fund _failed_. That was all. _You_ did not _fail_; oh, no; but the Savings Fund Corporation (into which a pliant legislature had transformed you),--it _failed_. And while you pocketed the hundred thousand dollars, you left the poor, who had trusted you, to starve, or beg, or die, as pleased them."

Israel shaded his eyes with his hands; he seemed buried in profound thought.

"This was the corner-stone of your fortunes. Then the Savings Fund swindler grew into the banker. There were legislatures at Albany, at Trenton and at Harrisburgh, eager to do your bidding,--hungry to be bought. For every dollar of real value in your coffers, these legislatures, by their charters, gave you the privilege to create at least fifty paper dollars; in other words, to demand from the toiling people of the land, some millions of dollars' worth of their labor, without any equivalent. Your banks grew; there were sham presidents and boards of directors, but you were the actual owner of them all; your paper was scattered broadcast over the land. It was in the hands of farmers and mechanics, of poor men and poor women, who had taken it in pay for hard labor; and all at once your banks _failed_. What became of the poor wretches who took your paper, is not known, but as for you, your capital of a hundred thousand now swelled into two millions of dollars. Let the poor howl! Had you not a press in your pay? Why should not the press be purchased, when legislatures are to be bought as so much merchandise?"

The judge paused, and after a moment resumed,--

"There was a clamor for a while, but you laughed in your sleeve, bought houses and lands,--dotted the city with pestilential dens, in which you crowded the poor, like insects in a festering carcass,--and after a time, raised your head once more as a banker. It was Harrisburgh, Albany or Trenton this time,--one of the three, or all of them,--which gave you the right to steal by law. You were now the owner (and behind the scenes, the wire-puller), of three banks. Last night you thought 'the pear ripe.' Your notes were once more scattered broadcast over the land. 'It is a good time to fail,' you thought, and so last night, in the railroad cars (in order to give a color to your failure) you pretended to be robbed of seventy-one thousand dollars."

"Pretended to be robbed? I tell you I was robbed," cried Israel, half-rising from his seat,--"robbed by an old convict and his young accomplice."

"And this morning, in due course, your three banks stopped payment. All day long your victims lined the street, in front of your den of plunder; and to-night found you in this place, seeking for a time, the gratification of one lust in place of another. And now you are in the hands of those who, having 'THE MIGHT,' will do with you as your crimes deserve. 'Might makes right,' you know."

"But where is the proof of all this? Where are my accusers?" Israel's teeth chattered as he spoke.

"Do you ask for accusers? What accusers are needed more powerful than those voices which now,--and even your seared conscience must hear them,--arise against you from the silence of the grave and the darkness of the dungeon cell?"

Israel tried hard to brace his nerves against the force of words like these,--against the tone in which they were spoke,--but he shook from head to foot, as though he had been seized with an ague-fit.

"Think for a moment of Cornelius Berman, whom, by the grossest fraud, you stripped of property and home, leaving himself and his only child to sink heart-broken into the grave. And once you called yourself his _friend_. Think, also, of your instrument, Buggles, whose persecution of the artist, instigated by you, provoked a brave and honest youth into murder, and consigned him to the felon's death! Do you ask for accusers?"

"Cornelius Berman!" faltered Israel, as if thinking aloud.

"Do you ask for proofs? Behold them on the table before you. For years your course has been tracked, your crimes counted, and the hour of your punishment fixed. And the hour has come! On the table before you are proofs of all your crimes, proofs that would weigh you down in a convict's chains before any court of law. There are the secrets which you thought safely locked up in your fire-proof, or buried in the forgotten past,--secrets connected with the history of long years, with your transactions in Harrisburgh, Trenton, Albany,--with all your schemes from the very dawning of your infamous career."

"Can Fetch, the villain, have betrayed me?" and Israel sank back helplessly in the huge arm-chair;--"or, is this man only trying to bully me into some confession or other?"

"Israel Yorke! the devotion with which you, for long years, have pursued your object,--to coin money out of human blood,--has only been exceeded by the devotion of those who have followed you at every step of the way, and for years, singled you out as the victim of avenging justice."

"But what do you intend to do with me?" cried Yorke, now shivering from head to foot with terror.

"In the first place, you will sign a paper, stating the truth, viz: that you have ample means to redeem every dollar of your notes, and that you will redeem them to-day, and henceforth at your office."

"But I have not the funds," Israel began, but he was sternly interrupted by the judge: "It is false! you have the funds. Independent of the seventy-one thousand dollars, of which you say you were robbed, you can, at any moment, command a million dollars. The proofs are on the table before you. You _must_ redeem your notes."

"And suppose I consent to sign such a paper?" hesitated the Financier.

"Then you must sign another paper, the contents of which you will not know until some future time," continued the judge, very quietly.

"If I do it, may I be ----!" screamed Israel, bouncing from his seat.

"It is well. You may go," calmly remarked the judge. "You are free; these gentlemen will see you from this house, and attend you until bank hours, when they will have the honor of presenting you to the holders of your notes, who will, doubtless, gather in respectable numbers in front of your banking house."

Israel was free, but the twelve gentlemen, with clubs, gathered round him, anxious to escort him safely on his way.

"Come, my dear little Turk, we are ready," said one of the number, with a very gruff voice, laying a hand,--it was such a hard hand,--on the shoulders of the Financier, "We're a-dyin' to go with you; ain't we, boys?"

"Dyin' ain't the word,--we're starvin' to death to be alone with the gentleman in blue trowsers," responded another.

Israel bit his lips in silent rage.

"Give me the papers," he said, in a sullen voice, and following a sign from the finger of the judge, he advanced to the table, and beheld the documents, the first of which he read.

It was an important document, containing a brief statement of all Israel's financial affairs,--evidently prepared by one who knew all about him,--together with his solemn promise to redeem every one of his notes, dollar for dollar.

"Could Fetch have betrayed me?"--Israel hissed the words between his set teeth, as he took up the pen.--"If I thought so, I'd cut his throat."

He signed, shook his gold spectacles, and uttered a deep sigh.

"Now, the other paper," said the judge, "its contents are concealed by another sheet, but there is room for your signature."

Israel's little eyes shone wickedly as he gazed upon the sheet of paper, which hid the mysterious document. He chewed the handle of his pen between his teeth,--stood for a moment in great perplexity, and then signed at the bottom of the sheet, the musical name of "ISRAEL YORKE," and then fell back in the chair wiping the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his Turkish jacket.

"Anything more?" he gasped.

"You are free," said the judge; "you may now change your dress, and leave this house."

Israel bounced from his seat.

"Yet, hold a single moment. One of these gentlemen will accompany you wherever you go; eat, drink, walk, sit, sleep with you, and be introduced by you to all your financial friends, as your moneyed friend from the country,----"

"Why, you must be the devil incarnate," screamed Israel, and he beat his clenched hand against the arm of the chair.

"It will be the business of your attendant to accompany you to your banking house, and see that you commence the redemption of your notes at nine o'clock this morning. He will report all your movements to me. Were you suffered to go alone, you might, in a fit of absence, glide out of public view, and,--Havana is such a pleasant residence for runaway bankers, especially in winter time."

Israel gave utterance to an oath. The judge, without remarking this pardonable ebullition of feeling, quietly addressed his twelve,--

"Which of you gentlemen will put yourself under this gentleman's orders, as his attendant and shadow?"

There was a pause, and one of the twelve advanced and laid his brawny hand upon the table. His gaunt and muscular form was clad in a sleek frock-coat of dark blue cloth, buttoned over his broad chest to his throat, where it was relieved by a black cravat and high shirt collar. His harsh features, closely shaven, and disfigured by a hideous scar on his cheek,--features manifesting traces of hardship and age,--were in singular contrast with his hair, which, sleek, and brown and glossy, was parted neatly in the middle of his huge head, and descended to either ear, in massy curls. His eyes, half hidden by the shaggy brows, shone with an expression only to be described by the words, _ferocious fun_.

"I'll go with him, hoss," said a gruff voice; and, turning to Israel, this singular individual regarded him with a steady look. Israel returned his look, and the twain gazed upon each other with increasing interest; and at length the individual approached Israel, and bent down his head near to his face.

"It's the fellow,--it's the fellow!" cried Israel, once more bouncing from his seat. "He robbed me last night in the cars,--he----"

"Be silent," cried the judge, who had regarded this scene attentively, with his hand upraised to his brow.--"Gentlemen, conduct the prisoner into the next room, and leave me alone with this person," he pointed to the gaunt individual who stood alone by the table.

The eleven disappeared through the curtains into the Golden Room with Israel in their charge.

"Now sir, who are you?" sternly inquired the judge.

The individual gravely lifted his brown hair,--for it was a wig,--and disclosed the outline of his huge head, with the black hair streaked with gray, cut close to the scalp. Then turning down the high shirt-collar, he disclosed the lower part of his face,--the wide mouth and iron jaw, stamped with a savage resolution.

"Don't you think I'm hansum?" he said, and the eyes twinkled under the bushy brows, and the mouth distorted in a grin.

"It's the same!" ejaculated the judge,--"How did you escape from the room in which you were confined some three hours ago, and what do you here?"

"As yer so civil and pleasant spoken, I don't mind answerin' yer questions. Arter the poleese had tied me, and left me in the dark upon the bed, 'it looks black,' said I to myself, 'but don't give it up so easy!' and a side door was opened, an' a hand cut my cords, and a voice said 'get up and travel,--the way is clear,' and a bundle was put into my hand, containin' these clothes, and this head o' hair.--I rigged myself out in the dark, pitched my old clothes under the bed, an' then went down the back stairway. I certainly did travel--"

"And then?--"

"And then," responded the individual, "I went and got shaved."

"How came you here?"

"Thinking, I was safer in a crowd, than anywhere else, I put for down town, and I mixed in with the folks in front of Israel Yorke's banking-house, and as they were hollering, why I hollered too. They wanted to pitch into him,--so did I. Lord! didn't they holler! And a gen'elman, seein' I was so airnest, told me about a private party, who were about to foller up Isr'el, to this house. One o' their gang, he said, was sick,--he axed me to jine 'em,--and swore me in as one of your perleese,--and I jined 'em."

"What is your name?" cried the judge, sternly.

"In the place where I was last, they called me Ninety-One," answered the old convict, arranging the high collar about his face,--"Years ago, when I was an honest man, afore a man in a cloak, on a dark night, left a baby with me and my wife, I was called,----"

He paused, and passed his brawny hand over his eyes. The judge started up from his seat.--

"Yes, yes, you were called,--" he exclaimed.

"John Hoffman," replied the convict.

The judge sank back in his chair, and his head dropped upon his breast. It was sometime before he spoke,--

"I have heard of your story before," he said, in a tremulous voice. "And now answer me one question," he continued in a firmer voice.--"Did you commit the murder for which you were arrested?"

"I can't expect you to believe an old cuss like me, but I certainly did _not_," responded Ninety-One.

"How came you in the room next to the one in which the murdered man was found?"

"I was took there by _a friend_, who offered to hide me from the folks who were arter me, about Israel's valise."

The judge seemed buried in thought.

"And after the murder was discovered, and you were arrested and pinioned, the same _friend_ appeared once more, and aided your escape?"

"It was a friend," dryly responded Ninety-One,--"can't say what he looked like, as the room was as black as your hat, (purviden you don't wear a white hat)."

"Did you commit the robbery on the railroad cars, last night?"

"I'll be straight up and down with you, boss," said Ninety-One,--"I did _not_,--and nobody didn't. The money was found on the track, after the smashin' up o' the cars."

"Do you imagine the _friend_, who hid you away in the house of old Mr. Somers, intended to implicate you in the murder of his son?"

"That's jist one o' th' p'ints I'd like to settle;" Ninety-One uttered a low deep laugh, "if he did, I wouldn't give three tosses of a bad copper for his windpipe."

"As the case stands now, you labor under the double suspicion of robbery and murder. Now mark me,--if you are innocent, I will defend you. In the course of the day, I will have some future talk with you. For the present, your disguise will avoid suspicion for a day or two. You will go with Israel Yorke, and report all his movements to me. My name and residence you will find on the card near the candlestick. One question more--there was a boy with you,--"

The voice of the judge again grew tremulous.

Ninety-One, attired in the neat frock-coat, which displayed the brawny width of his chest, drew himself to his full height, and gazed upon the judge, long and earnestly, his eyes deep-sunken behind his bushy brows.

"Do you think I'd a answered all your questions, hoss, if I hadn't thought you knew somethin' o' my life and had the will and the power to set me right afore the world? Well it's not for my own sake, I wish to be set right, but for the sake of that boy. And afore I answer your question, let me ax another: Did you ever happen to know a man named Doctor Martin Fulmer?"

Ninety-One could not see the expression of the judge's face, (for as you are aware, that face was concealed under the shadow of the broad brimmed hat,) but when the judge replied to his question, his voice was marked by perceptible agitation:

"I know Dr. Fulmer. In fact,--in fact,--I am often intrusted by him with business. He will be in town to-morrow."

"He is alive then," exclaimed Ninety-One. "Well hoss, when you meet Dr. Martin Fulmer, jist tell him that that boy, who was with me, had a parchment about his neck, on which these letters was writ, 'G. G. V. H. C.' The very same," he continued, as if thinking aloud, "which I used to send in a letter, to Dr. Martin Fulmer."

"And this boy," almost shrieked the judge, rising, and starting one step forward, on the platform, his corpse-like hand extended toward Ninety-One,--"This boy with the parchment about his neck, where,--where is he now?"